When I was a child, I often fantasized about having a treehouse in the woods. The treehouse was small but solid, with a roof and a ladder, snug enough to keep out the wind and the rain. I lived on a crowded and noisy urban street, I had very little to do with the country.

The Tree House sat above a pond, which was deep and stream-fed and beautiful, full of peeping frogs. It was a safe place, a protected place. Often in my dreams, I was in the Tree House, dry and warm while the rain beat down on the rooftop.

We lived in Providence, R.I., and rarely went into the woods, and so I ever ran into the Tree House of my dreams, at least not until we started walking in these beautiful woods a few years ago.

I was astonished to walk down a deeply-wood path, look down the hill and see my Tree House sitting up there on stilts, looking out over a beautiful pond. I can’t remember precisely what my imagined Tree House looked like but it had to be something just like this one, it hit me right in the heart when I saw it.

And perhaps I did dream it, perhaps I saw this Tree House from far away, and maybe it was just waiting all these years for me to show up. Walt Disney always said dreams do come true, and I thought of that sappy but mystical saying when I met Maria and then again, when I saw this Tree House in the woods, casting its reflection on the pond.